“There’s so much potential in second-hand shopping.”
Lottie, our E-commerce Assistant, joined our team in July 2022. Since then, she’s been working across our online shop platforms and helping to grow the presence of our bridal store, Catherine’s Bridal. Here she shares how she came to St Catherine’s, how she’s found the role so far, and some of her favourite things about working for us.
“Alongside this role, I actually have my own business – CWJ London. I make leather bags and accessories. My business is bespoke, everything is handmade and I focus on slow fashion, so I like to have another role part time.
Before this, I worked part time in a pub, but I saw this role come up and thought to myself ‘I do e-commerce anyway so I could do that’.
I now work three days a week at St Catherine’s.
I look after our e-commerce sites: eBay and Depop, Catherine’s Bridal and I also work on some of the projects to help develop some of the stores.
I think my favourite part of the job is probably Catherine’s Bridal. It’s given me a fantastic opportunity to grow something from scratch. There are more things to do around it and it feels a bit more like a project.
Our dresses are great for so many reasons. They’re perfect for people looking for a second dress for the evening, or for a ‘destroy the dress’ dress. Especially with the cost of living crisis, a lot of people are also looking to save money where they can and some of our dresses are brand new but they’re a fraction of the cost. Plus, we have such a variety it’s crazy.
We did a vintage bridal shoot for the shop recently.
Rhianne (@eventsbyrhianne) originally got in contact with my predecessor, Katy, to borrow some dresses for a shoot. She’d recently started to do wedding planning and wanted some content to advertise her work. We partnered with her to offer her the use of some of our wedding dresses
It was so nice to be invited along as we got to do all the behind the scenes shots. It’s all the additional angles and it feels like an inside scoop for people. We’re hoping to work with the same lady who did that shoot again – it went so well that she’s asked if we would like any help with our visual merchandising too.
Depop is quite satisfying too.
We can sell items for a much higher amount than instore. It can be funny and frustrating sometimes because people will come in with a ridiculous offer for a high quality product, but the next day someone will happily buy it for the full price that we’d put up for it. With Depop, I can also directly see how much people have contributed to St Catherine’s.
It helps having an idea of what is in fashion at the moment thanks to my own business, particularly when it comes to Depop. Sometimes in the shops an item will come in that I know will easily get £10 or £15 online as it’s really trendy, such a Y2k fashion.
It also helps that I’ve got a more creative side to get photos for the social media channels and an idea of how to write captions, style the garments and so on.
I always end up shopping.
During my first couple of weeks working here, every time I went into one of the shops I’d want to buy something. My first visit to Horsham I bought three vases and I’m now limiting myself to picking up one thing a month.
All my friends and family will ask me to keep an eye out for certain things too.
It’s a really nice place to work.
It’s for a charity, it’s chilled, everyone is really lovely. It ties into my own values around slow fashion and sustainability and there’s so much potential in second-hand shopping and what we can do with our store.
I’m still learning and I’m still meeting different members of the team, but there are some really exciting things coming and I can’t wait to see things progress.”
